A new survey from the MassINC Polling Group finds that 39 percent of Massachusetts workers currently employed would like to continue working from home either full-time or for part of the week once the coronavirus pandemic is over.
The poll, sponsored by WBUR, surveyed 501 likely voters between Aug. 6 and Aug. 9.
Nearly half of currently employed respondents – 45 percent – currently work from home every day, up from 15 percent before the pandemic, with another 13 percent doing so a few times a week. Fifty-six percent of respondents were employed full-time, with another 14 percent employed part-time. Just over 8 percent of respondents were out of work, while another 18 percent were retired.
Changes in work habits were most severe in the state’s major metro areas, the survey found, with 60 percent of those in Boston and its inner suburbs saying they’ve worked from home every day during the pandemic, and 44 percent of respondents in Boston’s outer suburbs reporting the same compared to 39 percent in Central and Western Massachusetts and 23 percent in Southeast Massachusetts.
Along with a battery of questions about how the pandemic has impacted the state, MassINC also asked how often respondents would like to continue working from home once the pandemic was over:
- Every workday: 19 percent
- A few times a week: 20 percent
- A few times a month: 11 percent
- Less than once a month: 1 percent
- Never: 15 percent
- Not an option: 33 percent
Those most interested in working from home permanently were women ages 18-44 (23 percent) and women over age 45 (22 percent), while only 13 percent of men ages 18-44 and 16 percent of men over age 45 were similarly inclined.
Men’s interest in working from home grew once the scenario was changed to working from home a few times a week – there, 21 percent of men ages 18-44 and 18 percent of men over age 45 were interested in working from home post-pandemic, compared to 24 percent of women ages 18-44 and 18 percent of women over age 45.
Interest in permanent was evenly spread among most education levels, with between 20 and 21 percent of those with some college, a bachelor’s degree or an advanced degree interested in the arrangement. By income, interest in permanent working from home was concentrated among those making over $150,000 (24 percent of that category) and those making less than $25,000 (25 percent of that category).
Interest in frequent working from home was mostly concentrated in those with a bachelor’s degree or advanced degree, at 26 percent and 32 percent, respectively. By income, interest in partial working from home was strongest among those making between $25,000 and $75,000 and those making more than $150,000 – 24 percent and 23 percent of each group, respectively.
The findings come as the future of the office is being hotly debated among landlords and architecture firms and square footage being offered on the Boston sublease market is spiking. Massive office REIT Boston Properties said in its second-quarter earnings call that it expected a widespread return to the office, meanwhile local suburban landlords like Cummings Properties and Hobbs Brook Management hope to lure firms out of downtown Boston and Cambridge with the promise of cheaper rent as the coronavirus recession starts to bite white-collar firms. At the same time, architects like Doug Gensler and Todd Dunn of Boston-based Gensler have argued that the office is just as likely to become a gathering and training space, and less a space for daily work for entire firms.
